A 20‐channel receive‐only mouse array coil for a 3 T clinical MRI system |
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| Authors: | Boris Keil Graham C. Wiggins Christina Triantafyllou Lawrence L. Wald Florian M. Meise Laura M. Schreiber Klaus J. Klose Johannes T. Heverhagen |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany;2. A. A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA;3. Center for Biomedical Imaging, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, New York, USA;4. A. A. Martinos Imaging Center, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA;5. Harvard‐MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA;6. University Medical Center, Section of Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany |
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| Abstract: | A 20‐channel phased‐array coil for MRI of mice has been designed, constructed, and validated with bench measurements and high‐resolution accelerated imaging. The technical challenges of designing a small, high density array have been overcome using individual small‐diameter coil elements arranged on a cylinder in a hexagonal overlapping design with adjacent low impedance preamplifiers to further decouple the array elements. Signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) and noise amplification in accelerated imaging were simulated and quantitatively evaluated in phantoms and in vivo mouse images. Comparison between the 20‐channel mouse array and a length‐matched quadrature driven small animal birdcage coil showed an SNR increase at the periphery and in the center of the phantom of 3‐ and 1.3‐fold, respectively. Comparison with a shorter but SNR‐optimized birdcage coil (aspect ratio 1:1 and only half mouse coverage) showed an SNR gain of twofold at the edge of the phantom and similar SNR in the center. G‐factor measurements indicate that the coil is well suited to acquire highly accelerated images. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. |
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| Keywords: | magnetic resonance imaging phased‐array coil small animal imaging parallel imaging |
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